Scat
Nov 30 2009


I like it, in jazz
when they say “Take it, man”,
handing-off
to guitar, the bass, the brass
the piano, finger-fast,
the melody somehow intact
as they riff and raff and scat
in snazzy suits that snap
of style.

But always coming back
to the line that runs through it,
watching, listening
the feel of the music.
I am amazed at their mastery —
playing by ear, rarely speaking
using a nod, a pause, a wink
to communicate.
So immersed in sound
they are weightless;
their boundaries precariously thin,
effortlessly breathing it in.

And the singer is tall and black
and beautiful,
a class act, nothing cheap or flashy
— the only girl
in an all-boys band.

Everything stops
when she sings
in a voice all smoke and honey,
all soulful sinful amber.
But holding back,
so her restrained power
keeps me on the edge of my seat;
hoping that she’ll let it go,
waiting for release.

By Degree
Nov 27 2009


“It’s warm
once you get used to it”
they always reassure,
splashing enticingly.
And give it long enough
it usually works.

Every day, a little colder,
from invigorating
to brisk
to bone-deep chill.
So you swim hard, non-stop
all the way out.
This reminds me of the frog
who hops out of hot water
every time.
But when the water’s warmed slowly
he sits, contented
— boiled alive.

I hop in, regardless.
In early mornings
with steam coming off.
In late fall
through a skim of ice.
And in winter
when it’s a hard 6 inches,
and it takes a long-handled axe
a gas-powered auger
to open up.

I swim in darkness,
pressing my face
up against the ice
in the shallow pocket of air
trapped
beneath the frozen surface,
steeling myself to be calm
methodical.

It never gets colder
than 30 degrees.
Where my heartbeat slows
my skin loses feeling
and my mind is at ease.
Wondering only
how far can I go,
will the hole freeze over.

No Visible Injury
Nov 27 2009


No visible injury.
A cast, on the other hand
would explain everything;
the story, that much more embellished
with each new telling.

Black felt pen
on smooth white plaster —
“Miss you, get well soon”
she wrote,
“i”s dotted with hearts
happy-face “o”s.

But when you had your bell rung,
the warm gelatin of cortex
shaken
stirred
thumped,
you looked the same;
despite the hard remembering
the stumbling aimlessly
the losing track of time.

And when she broke your heart
the despair
sucked your marrow dry,
cut you to the bone.
But you are a hard man, a stoic,
and no one ever noticed.
You remember being told
that time heals all,
and like a prisoner marking his wall
you took it day-to-day.

This diabolical clock,
as if every second
a drop of water bore down into your skull
in the same infernal spot —
the incessant tap-tap-tap
the eternity of seconds,
about to drive you mad.

Daily Walk
Nov 25 2009


I’m a half mile in.
Down a winding gravel lane
packed, 2 ruts,
pot-holes wallowing in water, mud
now glazed with ice,
in this indecisive fall
that will soon tip into winter.

It softens in the sun,
recording deer tracks
a stray dog, running
after squirrels, rabbits,
the layered shadows
of scent
to which I’m blind.

And the steep curve
where the tires slipped, spun
dug down into soft brown dirt,
left their mark.
And unfamiliar treads,
wrong turn, someone lost.

This is like Sumerian clay
Pompeii’s ash,
inscribed with the drab routine of days
on a palimpsest tablet.
. . . Except this won’t last,
wiped clean by freeze and thaw and rain,
leaving only guesswork
each time the weather changes.

And when I tire of mud
perhaps I’ll pave it under.
Hot asphalt
smelling of rich black tar.
Or concrete
for hardness.
When my daily walk will seem that much farther,
day after day
reading the same blank page
of pavement
underfoot.

A Glossary of Fog
Nov 23 2009


I drive
in the clutch of night
through pea-soup fog.
Half my body hangs out the window
in the goose-bump air
as if about to launch,
eyes glued to the shoulder
— on a gravel road, nothing marked
in the-middle-of-nowhere darkness.

It dropped down
from a cold wet sky
in the dead of night,
like mid-Atlantic
like bad film noir.
Or a bachelor uncle from out of town,
settling-in
for an unexpected visit.
No choice
but carry on.

In a town like this
we need a glossary of fog —
the cold black water,
the warm moist air
that funnels-up from the tropics,
conspiring together
too often.
Stranded again,
perched on the northern edge
of this inland lake,
a backwater place
a thousand miles away
from everywhere.

I find it comforting
enclosed in fog like this —
soaking-up the light
as if it never existed,
making sound play tricks,
turning the world so small
it feels nearly liveable.
As simple as an arm’s length
in any direction,
a candy-floss confection
of white.

The foghorn wails
out on the sea-wall
of the inner harbour.
The crunch of gravel
as I crawl along
no faster than walking.
The concentration is exhausting,
driving through fog like this.
When the road dips
and the fog suddenly lifts
for an instant
of brilliant clarity.
Until I plunge back in —
a solid wall of mist
swallowing-up the world.

Each feeling his way home
on gravel roads, and black-top.
All alone in the fog,
so slow
the world might well have stopped.

Transition Zone
Nov 18 2009


We man these borders
with quiet persistence.
And the usual inquisition —
identity checks,
the purpose of your visit,
contraband fruit.

I brought fresh-cut flowers, instead;
conveniently dead
on arrival.
A peace offering
a non-aggression pact.
Emotional blackmail, perhaps.
A week later
they sat in cloudy water
in a badly chipped vase.

I think of sentries, and one-way glass,
of floodlights, and dead zones —
the no-man’s land
re-claimed by wilderness.
I think of lines in the sand
that soften with the tide,
that a steady breeze
smooths over.

In nature, there are no borderlines
just transition zones.
So am I a nation-state,
sovereign, inviolable?
Or am I mortal,
unavoidably packed into crowds
rubbing-up against the others?
And only sometimes
permitted to enter as one —
the molecules of smell
our vision, our skin,
vital fluids, intermixed.

I can feel the border thickening,
the shadow of the wall.
They say, from space
the planet is borderless,
too high
for the fine-grained view up close.
Where we are preoccupied
by the narcissism
of petty differences,
by the outs and the ins.
Where desire ends
and belonging begins,
and all of us
are immigrants.

Whatever
Nov 15 2009


Another Sunday, mid-November
of thin light
cool wetness,
with the hollowed-out feeling
of giving up.
Patiently waiting
for whatever comes.

The masters of destiny
we once believed in
were false gods
all along.
We felt driven
moved mountains
re-invented ourselves,
all for naught.
Because change is random, swift
indifferent.
While we are miniscule
and insignificant.
Even the stars and the planets
magnificently wheeling through space
are slowly running down
growing dim,
coasting to the end of time
on the energy
with which they began.

We want to believe
in good deeds
posterity
remembrance.
We resist fate,
but in the end, surrender,
clutching our gizmos
posing
warding-off the dark.
Because underneath
we are ancient, naked,
appeasing our gods
convinced we are exceptional
constructing our flimsy vessels
of meaning.

I like this passive feeling;
the struggle was far too much,
submission becomes me.
An angry ocean
has turned calm
and bottomless.
It grows dark
as I go under,
a slip-stream of bubbles
is a single frayed strand,
a life-line
extending up.

Eye-to-Eye
Nov 10 2009


The sun struggles up,
hovering just above the trees.
Finger-like shadows
stretch across the gravel
reach as far as the lawn,
so it feels as claustrophobic
as a prisoner
rattling his bars.
Afternoon is brief,
night falls fast and silent
like solitary confinement
until spring.

Nevertheless, light floods-in
short and sweet —
to the far corner of the kitchen
the picture window, incandescent,
illuminating every dust-ball
every crumb.
Almost horizontal;
fully unforgiving.

What a contradiction
in this cold dark season;
that I can be overwhelmed by light,
by the sun
giving its all.
I bask in its heat,
blink, in its blinding brightness.
Tomorrow, they’re calling for cloud,
for rain, turning to snow.
But for now
I am a hot-house tomato,
feeling as fat and lazy
as summer.

The purification of light,
looking out at the sun
eye-to-eye.

The Yips
Nov 6 2009


The pup whimpers when she’s tired,
when she needs to go out
wants in
would like to play fetch —
a well chewed stick
soft with dog saliva.

Her deep brown eyes
imploring,
tail motoring
nose boring
into mouldy leaves,
abandoned rabbit holes,
stagnant puddles
bubbling-up
with soft green sludge.

She gets the yips —
frantically circling,
hurtling her sleek brown body
in kamikaze sprints,
ears pinned-back by speed.
Of which she has exactly 2:
flat-out full,
and catatonic.

When she falls into instant sleep
oblivious,
first pawing like a fussy mother
at a mess of towels, covers,
then squirmed against the crate.
Or flat on her back, dead-weight;
forelegs dangling, back legs splayed,
her soft pink tummy
undefended,
head cranked hard to left.

Lying in bed
I can hear her dream —
legs thrashing, teeth gnashing,
yips and growls and pants.
And we thought only higher animals, like us
dreamed
the great thoughts of human consciousness.
While this pup, asleep
pursues simpler things —
chasing groundhogs
that quiver with winter fat,
sniffing bigger dogs,
unleashed walks
bounding along beside me.

She makes me feel old
when she stops
and cocks her head behind her,
baffled at my slowness

And she keeps me young,
living every moment
as if that’s all there was.

The Invisible Hand
Oct 29 2009


Loose change
weighs down my pockets
jingles as I walk
glitters on the pavement,
not worth stopping.

At the end of the month
it litters the dresser-top —
slag heaps of copper,
small silver stepping-stones,
islands of gold.

A tall glass bottle
of coins,
waiting to be rolled.
Lugged to the bank, or thrift
where a real live teller
will roll her eyes, thin her lips,
corral then through the wicket
issue a deposit slip.

Then light as a kid who’s skipped
Latin, or calculus,
it’s a quick trip to the corner store,
where I break a 20 for silver.
And on my way
slip spare change
into a busker’s open case.

I am a patron of the arts
a generous man,
who finds time to stop, and listen
to a street musician
play for petty cash —
Bach’s Cello Suite,
free for all who pass.

Snag
Oct 31 2009


The tall poplar
upwind of the house
is a ton of punky wood
waiting to drop.
Its high sparse crown
looked like fall, all summer —
bare branches, bad shade,
a memento mori, on sunlit days
looming above us.

Poplars grow fast, die young
in tall reedy bunches,
sprouting on runners underground.
So this stand is really one,
colonizing the upland field
the air above.

The chainsaw rattles, roars,
growls at rest, belches contentment.
Then smokes and revs,
impatiently panting
greasy teeth flashing
the cheap combustion smell.
It bites, binds, frees itself,
tearing through rotten wood
with ease.
As the great tree leans,
toppling backwards
away from the house,
gets snagged by its brothers
angling-up.

I leave it like that,
birds nesting
trails of ants,
the wood turning dark
and soft as cork.
Where it will eventually settle to earth,
return
to rich black soil.